Have your say in Tas – opportunity extended

The Electricity Reform Project in the Tasmanian Government has agreed to accept late submissions on the Tasmanian feed-in tariff until next Tuesday. Our Briefing Paper gives you all the information you need to make a submission – short or long.

As a result of public pressure by Save Solar Tasmania and other community organisations, the government got the message that the people of Tasmania want a say on any changes to the feed-in tariff. Three weeks ago, the government announced a consultation process and released an Issues Paper.

We identified a number of deficiencies in the Issues Paper and earlier this week the government released a supplementary paper that only went a small way towards addressing these problems.

Your input to the review process is vital. Responses are due today, Friday 7 June, but the Electricity Reform Project has agreed to accept late submissions until close of business next Tuesday 11 June.

We urge you to send a submission; even a short email submission is acceptable.

The main points we encourage you to make are:

Any process to set a Feed-in Tariff needs to take into account the wider benefit to electricity consumers and to Tasmania, and not just the direct cost savings for retailers.

The proposed three years of the existing 1:1 tariff for existing installation is an absolute minimum requirement. There is a strong case for extending this to 5 years from the date of connection for those who connected in the last two years.

Existing arrangements should apply for anyone who pays a deposit before 31 December 2013.

Transition arrangements are needed to prevent the solar installation industry grinding to a halt after 31 December.

The feed-in tariff should apply to projects up to 100 kW to support commercial, community and on-farm projects.

The advantages you believe a vibrant industry for small scale solar and other renewable technologies would provide for Tasmania.

What the impact would be of a drastic reduction in the current feed-in tariff.

Last week we participated in Sustainable Living Tasmania’s very successful forum “Fate of the Feed-in Tariff”. Presentations from the night are available at http://slt.org.au/feedintariff and you can watch the whole event here.